How an Australian-Chinese Team Can Face Intercultural Communication Problems

Case Study of how an Australian-Chinese team can face intercultural communication problems

Business between a joint venture, an Australian-Chinese company in the manufacturing industry is going well.Research and development (R&D)is based in Australia, and production is based in China. The business is starting to be profitable, butcommunication problems develop in the team for them having different cultural values. The company has hired an external consultantto analyse the situation. This is what the consultant reports after interviewing representatives from both sides. You will read and analyse the problems based on the theories taught in the course and write a report.

The Australian manager's view of the managers in China

"We are impressed by our ambitious Chinese colleagues and their speedy reactions. They seem keen to learn and are very open-minded. What is not so good about their behaviour is that they aren't prepared to take responsibility or follow agreedprocedures immediately. They think in a more hierarchical way and there is very little horizontal or team communication in the meetings. They seem reluctant to take the initiative or make independent decisions. Recently, they have started to turn up late to meetings or sometimes not come at all. When we ask them about a problem, they often repeat the same thing many times, and it is very difficult to know what they are really thinking. Sometimes they don’t explain problems very well. Often they smile politely and say yes, but don't do anything afterwards. I wish they should be more open and tell us directly if they have a problem with something. We've hired quite a few new Chinese employees, although they have excellent qualifications on paper, we've been disappointed with their performance. The otherissueis loyalty. We hire them, train them and sometimes they leave the company and join one of our competitors."